Getting Pregnant with PCOS – Luckier than Thou?

Any of us who have ever struggled with getting pregnant with PCOS knows the score. To be blunt, it sucks. It sucks if it’s your first time trying to get pregnant. It sucks if you’re trying for your twenty-fifth baby.

Jenny of the Cloth Diaper Revival is seriously working hard at getting pregnant with PCOS. She’s been chronicling her struggle… and it mirrors my struggle when we were trying to conceive Eudora. This week’s post was things not to say to a woman who is struggling. Even though Jenny recognizes that she is fortunate to have one already (she used the word “blessed”), it doesn’t make her want another any less badly. It doesn’t ease the ache. One child is not a substitute for another.

When a reader asked Jenny if that meant that others who hasn’t had a child weren’t “blessed,” it was a moment of sadness.

I’ve been there, done that. It sucks to watch your friends get pregnant around you again and again when you can’t. It sucks to have those same friends walk on eggshells when they tell you about pregnancies because they’re your friends and don’t want to hurt you. It’s horrible to be on Clomid, which has that extra special side effect of making us completely and utterly insane. (I was so miserable and depressed on Clomid that I didn’t even want to be around myself. So I’m pretty sure that no one else particularly wanted to be around me, either.)

So to those who haven’t yet been “blessed” (or, as I call it, “lucky”) enough to have a successful pregnancy while struggling with PCOS, please, please don’t think that somone else successfully getting pregnant with PCOS (and staying pregnant) is somehow more blessed or whatever. If anything, look at us as inspiration. I managed to have two after my PCOS diagnosis. Jenny has one. Another friend of mine managed to get pregnant several years after giving up (all because she lost roughly half a human in weight). Other people that you probably know, have, too.

If it can work for us, it can work for you. No matter how hard or how painful it may be, it’s still a possibility. It’s just a matter of finding that right cocktail combination for you.

I was not ovulating after my miscarriage. Combined with my postpartum depression on top of my regular anxiety and depression, I was mess. I was so angry. The only thing that made me better was conceiving my daughter. Basically, I did not cope very well.

I didn’t cope well with my miscarriage at all. I didn’t deal with it… and it caused me to most unfairly blame my family doctor, all because I remembered things differently than they actually happened. Had it not been for blogging as I went along, I might have trusted that faulty memory and continued to blame someone who did the best that he could to help us.

I had PCOS before my first pregnancy. We had adopted our oldest, but wanted many more kids. We tried for 2 years. We were just 2 weeks away from IVF. The doctor had said ‘between you two, you will never get pregnant on your own’. Then it happened. Since that pregnancy, it took 6 months to get pregnant with my 3rd son (2nd pregnancy) and our 4th child was a (welcomed) accident. We planned on a 4th, just not so soon. PCOS changes and things can happen. Never give up!

I haven’t had to endure this particular struggle but can’t imagine the pain and frustration of it all. I can’t even take hormonal birth control without becoming a total basketcase so my heart goes out to you.

My sister has PCOS and is currently trying to get pregnant so I know firsthand the pain and frustration that this generates. It is so hard on her and my brother in law because she feels that her window of opportunity is running out as she gets older.

My heart just aches for those who struggle to get and stay pregnant. While we were pregnant with her first, I listened as my very best friend in the entire world had 2 miscarriages, yet still called almost every day to ask how i was doing. The second was days before my daughter was born and I shed tears with her. My heart ached so much and I love her so much. She wanted to share her sadness before my baby came so we could just celebrate her. My sister in law had 5 miscarriages during our pregnancy. I can’t imagine the pain that they went through and still feel. My best friend is again surrounded by pregnant friends and is so frustrated with the fact that she still isn’t pregnant.

Great post. I had friends who struggled with PCOS and was terrified that I would have it as well (have a lot of the warning signs/symptoms), but ended up getting pregnant pretty quickly with my first and almost instantly with my 2nd & 3rd. I felt a sort of guilt when I had to tell them that I was pregnant.

I’ve not been diagnosed with PCOS, but it took us what felt like an eternity to get pregnant with our first and only so far. (Over 3 years!) Not that I enjoy other people’s suffering, but it is always nice to know that you are not alone in your struggles, especially when it seems like every female around you gets pregnant by just thinking about it!

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